Page 71 of Back Outside Edge

I give the most minuscule shrug in history. "Maybe. Will I skate again?"

Her fingers brush my brow. "No furrows, kiddo. If it's possible to get you back out there, our team will manage it. We've got an excellent facility here. I've seen people come back from worse."

"Thanks."

A light pat on my shoulder, and then she's up, returning the cup to its place on the table. "Get some rest."

"Ok."

If I wake again before morning, I don't remember it. When I do wake next, it’s my mother’s hand holding mine, and for the first time since I fell, tears burn against the back of my eyes. "Mama."

My mother looks up from her tablet, on which she's undoubtedly reading a very steamy romance; her eyes fill with the tears I'm trying to hold back. "Mijo."

I want to hug her, so much it hurts almost as badly as my right side. Reading my mind, she leans down to kiss my forehead, below the bandage I don’t remember getting, her lips warm against my skin. It's not quite the same, but it still fills me with a wave of relief. "I'm so glad you're here."

"Of course I'm here." She playfully swats at my arm, so gently it barely registers, as tears continue to stream down her face. "My baby needs me. Where else would I be?"

"Is Papa here too?" Didn’t someone say they were both coming?

"He's here." Mama's hand squeezes mine and she leans down to kiss my forehead again. "They only allowed one of us to be in here with you, and I won. I'm the one who carried you in my womb for nine months."

Despite everything, it's enough to send a shot of laughter through me, though I do my best to quell it. I'm pretty sure laughing would hurt like hell. It's her way of winning any argument about us with Papa; how could he ever compete with it? "What about Sophie and Christian?"

She rolls her eyes. "Your hermanos have been texting every five minutes since we stepped out of the door. But they have school, so we left them at home. They may never forgive us."

"Tell them I love them."

"Of course, Mijo. They know that."

"I know, but..." Everything is a lot clearer after the fall. After the moment that, cliché or no, my life flashed before my eyes. As soon as I lifted off the ice, I knew what was going to happen, but it was too late to stop it.

"I just..." I don't have the words. Not the right ones. So I settle with a repeat. "I'm really glad you're here."

"I know, Mijo."

We go silent for a while, me floating in half-consciousness, she back to her reading, until a nurse comes in. She is different from the one last night. "Are you ready for more tests?" She sounds far too chipper.

"Nope." I smile at her, though, not wanting her to think I’m being difficult. "You're going to do them anyway."

"We sure are." She smiles back, sympathetic, but not giving an inch. "We need another CT of your head, and then we're going to put you through another round of x-rays on that pelvis. The doctor wants to make sure it's still stable."

I don't remember much about the x-rays yesterday, but what I do remember was painful. They'd tried to avoid shifting me, but the transitions to the hard table and back weren't perfect. "Goody."

Her laugh is... appeasing? I'm not as funny as I think I am, it says, but she's letting me get away with it. Fine; I'm not at my best at the moment. Mama squeezes my hand one last time, then watches as they wheel me out of the room.

The scans aren't quite as agonizing as I remember, thank God. When the doctor comes to give us the diagnosis a couple hours later, I'm finally given the full report.

The bandages on my head exist because I cut it when I fell. I also hit hard enough they’ve been watching to make sure there’s no internal bleeding. So far, so good, but there's still a small risk.

It’s the rest of his news that's terrifying, even if he’s less concerned about it. He shows Mama and me scans as he explains. The white line running through my pelvic bone. The two breaks in my tibia. The torn ligaments in my knee.

“So.” He’s settled back into his chair, eyes bouncing between the two of us. “It’s good news and bad news. The pelvic fracture is stable, and as long as it stays that way, there’s nothing life-threatening about it.” Life threatening? From a broken bone? Mama’s indrawn breath matches mine.

Seeing our reactions, he smiles consolingly. “I didn’t mean to concern you; apologies. Pelvic fractures get a bad rap, and for good reason. But you got lucky. Not even surgery. As long as it doesn't get worse, it’ll heal on its own.”

Mama squeezes my hand, hard. “And the other injuries?”

“I’ll go in and stabilize the tibia, and we’ll also have to do some work on your knee, Evan. Maybe more than once. I’m not the guy for that conversation, though; we’ll have you talk with a specialist later. Nothing will happen for a few days. We need to wait for the swelling to go down.”